Mkango Resources Ltd. (AIM/TSX-V: MKA) (the "Company" or "Mkango")
is pleased to announce that HyProMag Limited (“HyProMag”) has
established an 80% owned German subsidiary, HyProMag GmbH. HyProMag
GmbH is 20% held by Professor Carlo Burkhardt of Pforzheim
University in Germany, who has also been appointed to the board of
Directors of HyProMag GmbH.
Germany is a major producer and market for rare
earth magnets in Europe, and the establishment of HyProMag GmbH
provides a strong platform to grow the business in the region.
Germany has no domestic sources of primary rare earths. Development
of domestic sources of recycled rare earths via the patented HPMS
is a significant opportunity to diversify and strengthen
development of a more resilient rare earths supply chain in
Europe.
The HPMS process for extracting and
demagnetising neodymium iron boron (“NdFeB”) alloy powders from
magnets embedded in scrap and redundant equipment was originally
developed within the Magnetic Materials Group at the University of
Birmingham and subsequently licenced to HyProMag. As an affiliated
company, HyProMag GmbH is covered by the exclusive license of
HyProMag and the companies will share new developments. Rare earth
magnets play a key role in clean energy technologies including
electric vehicles and wind turbine generators, and they are also a
key component in electronic devices including mobile phones, hard
disk drives and loudspeakers.
Mkango’s wholly owned subsidiary, Maginito
Limited (“Maginito”), holds a 42% equity interest in HyProMag, with
an option to increase its interest up to 49%. Maginito has the
first right to supply primary production, if required for blending
with recycled production from HyProMag, as well as product offtake
and marketing rights.
William Dawes, Chief Executive of Mkango
stated: “This is an exciting milestone for HyProMag,
positioning the company for further growth in Europe and
internationally. The establishment of HyProMag GmbH also
complements Mkango’s strategy to develop a rare earths processing
hub in neighbouring Poland, working with Grupa Azoty Pulawy. Mkango
looks forward to supporting HyProMag’s development in UK, EU and
international markets, as it scales up to commercial
production.”
Professor Carlo Burkhardt, Director of
HyProMag GmbH stated: “I am very pleased to be a
founding shareholder and to join the Board of HyProMag GmbH, which
provides an excellent platform to grow the business in Germany and
Europe. It’s tremendously exciting to see the huge strides we all
collectively have made in developing technologies to identify,
separate and reprocess magnets from waste streams, which are now
nearing commercial application and which will, hopefully, play
their part in making European supply chains more resilient to
external influences.”
David Kennedy, Director of HyProMag
stated: “The collaborative research and development
undertaken by the The Magnetic Materials Group at the University of
Birmingham encourages exploitation of Intellectual Property and
establishment of new industry. HyProMag, as the exclusive licensee,
is pleased to establish a new company in the EU for the purpose of
rolling out the short loop recycling of Rare Earth Permanent Magnet
materials, which are expected to have a low environmental impact.
Due to our extensive and successful work to date with Prof.
Burkhardt, we expect that our joint efforts through HyProMag GmbH
will fulfill HyProMag’s objectives to extend the technology into
Europe and to exploit the extensive magnet scrap potential of the
European Union. This supports HyProMag’s plan to establish
manufacturing centres in both the UK and in the EU, accessing RE
magnet waste streams throughout Europe.”
SusMagPro
The SusMagPro project is focused on establishing
a sustainable magnet supply chain in the EU through recovery and
recycling of REEs from magnetic waste materials. By introducing a
reliable source of raw materials at scale, it is expected that
SusMagPro will contribute to the future growth of the magnet
recycling industry. This will be enabled by SusMagPro’s current
strategic partnership with 19 companies and institutes, allowing
for synergies and collaboration between different points of the
magnet life cycle. The SusMagPro project covers a wide spectrum of
potential products, underpinned by supply of recycled NdFeB powder
from HPMS pilot plant production, which will result in significant
further demonstration and derisking of the HPMS technology. Apart
from production of sintered magnets (in common with the “Rare-Earth
Recycling for E-Machines” (“RaRE”) and Rare-Earth Extraction from
Audio Products (“REAP”) projects), the project will also produce
HDDR (hydrogen decrepitation deabsorbation recombination) powder
for bonded magnets.
About HyProMag
The Magnetic Materials Group within the School
of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham has
been active in the field of rare earth alloys and processing of
permanent magnets using hydrogen for over 40 years. Originated by
Professor Rex Harris, the hydrogen decrepitation method, which is
used to reduce NdFeB alloys to a powder, is now ubiquitously
employed in worldwide magnet processing.
In a further development, the Magnetic Materials
Group (“MMG”) patented a process for extracting and demagnetising
NdFeB powders from magnets embedded in redundant equipment using
hydrogen in a process called HPMS (Hydrogen Processing of Magnet
Scrap). This patent and related intellectual property is at the
core of HyProMag’s business. The MMG continues to develop new
research and development opportunities, cooperates widely in
Europe, including a major EU project, SusMagPro, which is also
focused on recycling of magnets. The directors of HyProMag all
provide their expertise to the MMG and there is potential for
HyProMag to gain possible future access to new intellectual
property.
HyProMag, European Metal Recycling Limited
(“EMR”) and University of Birmingham recently completed the REAP
project (Rare-Earth Extraction from Audio Products). EMR, is a
global leader in metal recycling, operating at 150 locations around
the world, and the largest automotive recycler in the UK. EMR
pre-processed automotive and flat screen TV loudspeaker scrap to
provide a feed of scrap components containing NdFeB magnets to
HyProMag. HyProMag used the HPMS process in conjunction with the
University of Birmingham to extract the magnets as a demagnetised
alloy powder, which was then successfully used in the remanufacture
of magnets.
HyProMag also leads the Innovate UK grant funded
project, RaRE with partners University of Birmingham, Advanced
Electric Machines Research Limited, Bentley Motors Limited,
Intelligent Lifecycle Solutions Limited and Unipart Powertrain
Applications Limited.
RaRE will for the first time establish an end to
end supply chain to incorporate recycled rare earth magnets into
electric vehicles, whereby recycled magnets will be built into an
ancillary electric motor to ultimately support the development of a
commercial ancillary motor suite.
HyProMag’s strategy is to establish recycling
facilities for NdFeB magnets at Tyseley in Birmingham and other
locations to provide a sustainable solution for the supply of NdFeB
magnets and alloy powders for a wide range of markets including,
for example, automotive and electronics. A number of product
options are being evaluated including hydrogen decrepitated (HD)
demagnetised powders suitable for magnet producers, alloy ingot
remelted from HD powders suitable for alloy feed or magnet
production, anisotropic alloy powders (HDDR) for bonded magnets and
sintered NdFeB magnets as required by the RaRE project for
automotive applications.
The founding directors of HyProMag, comprising
Professor Emeritus Rex Harris, former Head of the MMG, Professor
Allan Walton, current Head of the MMG, and two Honorary Fellows, Dr
John Speight and Mr David Kennedy, are leading world experts in the
field of rare earth magnetic materials, alloys and hydrogen
technology, and have significant industry experience. Following the
investment by Maginito, HyProMag appointed William Dawes, a
Director of Maginito and Chief Executive Officer of Mkango, to the
Board of HyProMag.
For more information, please visit
https://hypromag.com/
Market Abuse Regulation (MAR)
Disclosure
The information
contained within this
announcement is deemed by the Company to
constitute inside information as stipulated under the
Market Abuse Regulations (EU)
No . 596/2014 ('MAR') which has been incorporated
into UK law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Upon
the publication of this announcement via Regulatory
Information Service ('RIS'), this inside information is now
considered to be in the public domain.
About Mkango
Resources Limited
Mkango's corporate strategy is to develop new
sustainable primary and secondary sources of neodymium,
praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium to supply accelerating demand
from electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technologies.
This integrated Mine, Refine, Recycle strategy differentiates
Mkango from its peers, uniquely positioning the Company in the rare
earths sector.
Mkango is developing Songwe Hill in Malawi with
a Feasibility Study targeted for completion in Q1 2022. Malawi is
known as "The Warm Heart of Africa", a stable democracy with
existing road, rail and power infrastructure, and new
infrastructure developments underway.
In parallel, Mkango recently announced that
Mkango and Grupa Azoty PULAWY, Poland's leading chemical
company and the second largest manufacturer of nitrogen and
compound fertilizers in the European Union, have agreed to
work together towards development of a rare earth Separation Plant
at Pulawy in Poland. The Separation Plant will process the purified
mixed rare earth carbonate produced at Songwe.
Through its ownership of Maginito
(www.maginito.com), Mkango is also developing green technology
opportunities in the rare earths supply chain, encompassing
neodymium (NdFeB) magnet recycling as well as innovative rare earth
alloy, magnet, and separation technologies. Maginito holds a 42%
interest in UK rare earth (NdFeB) magnet recycler, HyProMag
(www.hypromag.com) with an option to increase its interest to
49%.
Mkango also has an extensive exploration
portfolio in Malawi, including the Mchinji rutile discovery, for
which assay results are pending, in addition to the Thambani
uranium-tantalum-niobium-zircon project and Chimimbe nickel-cobalt
project.
For more information, please
visit www.mkango.ca.
Cautionary Note Regarding
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking
statements (within the meaning of that term under applicable
securities laws) with respect to Mkango, its business, HyProMag,
HyProMag GmbH, the Separation Plant and Songwe. Generally, forward
looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as
“plans”, “expects” or “is expected to”, “scheduled”, “estimates”
“intends”, “anticipates”, “believes”, or variations of such words
and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results
“can”, “may”, “could”, “would”, “should”, “might” or “will”, occur
or be achieved, or the negative connotations thereof. Readers are
cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking
statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions
or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their
nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions,
known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and
specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions,
forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will
not occur, which may cause actual performance and results in future
periods to differ materially from any estimates or projections of
future performance or results expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, without
limiting the foregoing, governmental action relating to COVID-19,
COVID-19 and other market effects on global demand and pricing for
the metals and associated downstream products for which Mkango is
exploring, researching and developing, factors relating the
development of the Separation Plant, including the outcome and
timing of the completion of the feasibility studies, cost overruns,
complexities in building and operating the Separation Plant,
changes in economics and government regulation, the positive
results of a feasibility study on Songwe Hill and delays in
obtaining financing or governmental approvals for, and the impact
of environmental and other regulations relating to, Songwe Hill and
the Separation Plant as well as HyProMag and HyProMag GmbH being
able to commercialise its HPMS and other technologies, MMG being
successful in developing new research and other opportunities (and
whether these opportunities will be available to HyProMag), whether
HyProMag and HyProMag GmbH are able to successfully establish
recycling facilities for NdFeB magnets at Tyseley in Birmingham in
Germany and in other locations to provide a sustainable solution
for the supply of NdFeB magnets and alloy powder, whether the
establishment of HyProMag GmbH will fulfill HyProMag objectives to
extend the technology into Europe and to exploit the extensive
magnet scrap potential of the European Union and whether HyProMag
and HyProMag GmbH are able to access to RE magnet waste streams
throughout Europe. The forward-looking statements contained in this
news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except
as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes
no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise,
except as required by applicable law. Additionally, the Company
undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or
statements made by, third parties in respect of the matters
discussed above.
For further information on Mkango, please
contact:Mkango Resources Limited |
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William DawesChief Executive Officerwill@mkango.caCanada: +1 403
444 5979www.mkango.ca@MkangoResources |
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Alexander LemonPresidentalex@mkango.ca |
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BlytheweighFinancial Public RelationsTim BlytheUK:
+44 207 138 3204SP Angel Corporate Finance
LLPNominated Adviser and Joint BrokerJeff Keating,
Caroline RoweUK: +44 20 3470 0470Alternative Resource
CapitalJoint BrokerAlex Wood, Keith DowsingUK: +44 20 7186
9004/5Bacchus Capital AdvisersStrategic and
Financial AdviserRichard Allan, Andrew KrelleUK: +44 20 3848 1642 /
+44 79 5636 2903 |
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The TSX Venture Exchange has neither
approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services
Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX
Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or
accuracy of this release.
This press release does not constitute an offer
to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any equity or other
securities of the Company in the United States. The securities of
the Company will not be registered under the United States
Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and
may not be offered or sold within the United States to, or for the
account or benefit of, U.S. persons except in certain transactions
exempt from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities
Act.
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